


一期一会 (ichigo, ichie)

by AuKestrel



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Era, Conversations, Gen, Post-Canon, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 18:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17688299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuKestrel/pseuds/AuKestrel
Summary: Toph and Zuko find tea and balance at the Jasmine Dragon.





	一期一会 (ichigo, ichie)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurgaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurgaya/gifts).



> This admits no canon beyond Sozin’s Comet. It could be assumed to be set just after the last episode.
> 
> Kurgaya, I hope you enjoy this small conversation!

#  **一期一会 (ichigo, ichie)**

###  _“One time, one meeting.”_

* * *

 

“Fine! Just go on your stupid... thing!”

“It’s not a ‘stupid thing’!”

Toph puts her other foot down and lifts her head to listen, although she doesn’t have to do either, really. She can feel Mai stomping away, and she can feel Ty Lee’s dancing (not quite the same as Twinkletoes, but close) as she waits impatiently at the fountain. Suki is already there, and Katara is playing in the water. She’d asked Toph to come along three or four times, but Toph isn’t in the mood for a “girls’ day out” with Mai and Ty Lee.

She isn’t in the mood for much, if she’s honest with herself. She feels like she’s putting off the future. _But I’m twelve_ , she tells herself fiercely. _I_ have _a future now that Ozai is defeated... and I_ don’t _need to think about it all the time!_

She isn’t like Katara, always certain about her decisions. She isn’t like Zuko, built-in problems from his grandfather and father that he’ll have to fix laying his path out plainly, if not easy. She isn’t like Sokka, always coming up with a new plan, no matter how ridiculous it is. She isn’t like Suki, who seems able to balance Sokka and the Kyoshi Warriors in a way that makes it seem like she’s the airbender, not Aang. And Ty Lee? Ty Lee is nothing but balance, just like Aang, and Toph hates them all for a few seconds.

Balance is tricky for a blind earthbender. If she can’t feel, she can’t see. She might be able to balance on a pinnacle of rock - especially one she’s raised herself - but balance on a tightrope like Ty Lee? Or a knife’s edge, like Aang? “No, thank you!” she says out loud, without meaning to.

Across the shop, Iroh raises his head. She feels him look at her and she grins at him. Reassured, he goes back to his tea, and Toph goes back to listening. The girls are almost at the Fancy Day Lady Spa or whatever they call it. Closer in, by the fountain, there’s Zuko, jangling hot sparky vibrations with every step he takes.

“It’s not a stupid thing,” Zuko says, close behind her. He sounds like he’s talking to himself. “I know that.”

If she was Katara, she’d tell Zuko that Mai knows that. But she isn’t Katara, so she hunches her shoulders at him and says nothing. Zuko sits down anyway, even though she didn’t invite him, and sighs, and puts his elbows on the table like he’s a kid and not the Fire Lord. That makes Toph’s heart feel lighter, so she puts her elbows on the table too. They sit like that until Iroh comes over, carrying the tea that he loves.

(If Toph was Iroh, it would be her favorite tea too. It was the first tea she ever had that was brewed with love and certainty. But she’s not Iroh and she doesn’t have a favorite tea.)

“Uncle,” Zuko says, and she feels him incline his head.

“Prince - I mean, Fire Lord Zuko,” Iroh says, and she isn’t sure if Zuko can hear it, but she can, the glimmer of mischief in Iroh’s voice.

“Don’t remind me,” Zuko says.

Toph picks up her cup and lets the warmth run through her fingers. She wonders if this is what firebending feels like, or maybe hot-water-bending. She’ll have to ask Katara. She wishes the heat could reach deep down inside her.

“ _Prince_ Zuko,” Iroh says, and this time she can tell he’s smiling. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

“It’s not that,” Zuko says. “At least - not only that. It’s... it’s this ‘Fire Lord’ ... thing. No one seems - no one tells me the truth. No one seems to - I could say I’m moving the palace to the Boiling Rock and they would all say, ‘Yes, Fire Lord Zuko,’ and ‘As you wish, Fire Lord Zuko.’”

“I hope you don’t do that,” Iroh says and sips his tea.

Toph can feel Zuko’s struggle inside himself not to laugh. Finally he gives up, even though the only outward sign is a small snort. “I won’t, don’t worry. This is good tea.”

“You would know,” Iroh says, and this time Zuko does laugh.

“You could start with the schools,” Toph says after another long silence. “Ask Aang. I didn’t go to a Fire Nation school. But the stuff he told us they taught in that Fire Nation school... it was different from what I learned, and different from what Aang knew.”

“The Fire Nation needed to make sure all the nails were the correct height,” Iroh says, and she can feel him nodding.

“I never used a hammer until this year,” Zuko says, and Toph feels his heart speed up. “I hit every nail wrong. I wasted so many.”

“Did you learn how to use a hammer?” Iroh says, and Toph feels Zuko shrug, then nod. “Then those nails were not wasted, Prince Zuko.”

“Tell that to the farmer,” Zuko mutters.

“Well,” Toph says, “now you can send that farmer a whole bag of nails.”

“And you can send that farmer’s son home,” Iroh adds.

“Until the next time,” Zuko says. “Until someone assassinates me and puts my father back on the throne. Until they replace me with Azula. Because they do whatever I say, and last week they did whatever Azula said, and the week before that, they did whatever-”

“Zuko. For this time only.” Iroh’s voice is so quiet even Toph has to strain to listen.

Zuko takes a deep breath. It’s a breath Toph recognizes: it’s a centering breath, it’s a calming breath; it’s a bending breath. Then he takes another breath. Then another. Toph feels his heartbeat slow down, as if he's regaining his balance.

His voice a whisper, Zuko finally says, “I don’t want to sound crazy... but I really don’t know who to trust any more, Uncle. I’ve been used to - to this,” and he gestures around the table, the tea shop - “and the only person I can get a straight answer from in my own palace is Mai.”

“She is made of fine steel,” Iroh says, and the approval in his voice makes Toph warm inside.

“And lots of sharp edges,” Toph says, and maybe Zuko’s starting to feel better, because he laughs, and Toph is willing to bet the smile on his face is just plain dopey.

“Uncle, I wish you’d come back with us,” Zuko says.

“I wish I could,” Iroh says. “I will visit you. But I am just as much a target of intrigue as you are, and I would be another focus if I came back.” He drains his tea cup and sets it down with a clatter that startles Toph. “But I have been giving this some thought, nephew.”

“The White Lotus Society? Your friends? They will tell me the truth, the same way you always have.”

“I agree, and I have made you a list,” Iroh says. “But you must also face this truth, Fire Lord Zuko: a frog in a well does not know the great sea. You have many, many frogs in the Fire Nation.”

“And only death will cure an idiot,” Zuko says, rattling his fingers on the table. “I know, Uncle.”

“I am not suggesting-”

“I know you’re not,” Zuko says. “You have too much honor.”

“Do not think I have too much honor, since I have arranged for my friends to watch over you,” Iroh says.

Zuko laughs. “You and Mai.”

“You could start with the schools,” Toph hears herself saying again. “You have to start somewhere.” She wrestles with herself for a moment - was she actually jealous of Zuko, earlier, because he had all these problems to solve and at least he had something to _do_? Now that she can tell what he’s struggling with, she has to admit, it doesn’t sound easy.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she says out loud. “But it could be fun.”

She can feel Zuko’s startled look, and she expects the poke he follows up with. “To an earthbender, maybe.”

“To a metalbender,” she corrects, plinking her meteorite bracelet into stones and popping them at the back of his hand, one after another, pop pop pop. “I can help. They’ve got to respect a blind metalbender, right?”

Iroh throws his head back and laughs from his belly, a roar like fire.

Zuko bows his head. His voice is utterly serious when he says, “Toph Beifong, I would be honored to have your assistance.”

For the first time since Ozai was defeated, Toph feels warm inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of "ichigo, ichie." It is often translated as "one time, one meeting" in the sense that at this time, in this place, put your energy into this moment. It is more than "you only live once" and it is more than mindfulness. It's a reminder to live in the moment, because the moment you are in right now will never come again. There is also a connotation of this in martial arts: the discipline of treating each battle, even a practice, as a singular, important act, because in a real battle, there are no do-overs. Iroh trains Zuko to channel lightning, and Zuko passes that training on to Aang. But they don't practice it: knowing it, and being centered in the moment, is what Zuko needs to know to channel lightning, and Aang too. 
> 
> It seems to me that "ichigo, ichie" would be part of Iroh's personality and part of how he would approach training with Zuko. He would use this concept, and this phrase - "for this time only" - to remind Zuko to find his center, his balance, to be fully present and to engage the moment on his own terms.


End file.
